LOS ANGELES ? Manny Pacquiao?s adviser Michael Koncz took the blame for the non-disclosure of Manny Pacquiao?s shoulder injury to Nevada sports officials prior to his fight with Floyd Mayweather Jr. last Sunday in Las Vegas.
According to a report by the New York Daily News, Koncz said it was him, not Pacquiao, who filled out the pre-fight medical questionnaire in which the injury to boxer?s right shoulder should have been declared.
?Number one, Manny didn’t check the box,? said Koncz, who later on realized his blunder.
RELATED: Pacquiao?s pre-fight medical form shows non-disclosure of injury
The form shows the ?No? box being checked next to the question ?Have you had any injury to your shoulder, elbows, or hands that needed evaluation or examination?? It is the sixth question in the document.
?I checked it. It was just an inadvertent mistake. If I was trying to hide anything, would I have listed all the medications on the sheet that he intended to use? We weren’t trying to hide anything. I just don’t think I read the questionnaire correctly,? Koncz continued. Sportshub ( Article MRec ), pagematch: 1, sectionmatch: 1
Although he checked the ?No? box next to the question of whether Pacquiao has had any upper body injuries, Koncz declared that Pacquiao took anti-inflammatory substances in the last month.
Among the drugs indicated in the form were the drugs bupivacaine, celestone and lidocaine, which are numbing agents that are not considered to be performance enhancements. Pacquiao was planning to take injections of the substances right before fighting Mayweather at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, but the NSAC prohibited him from doing so due to the non-disclosure.
While he took blame for the mistake, Koncz said the NSAC is not without fault.
?I?m going to take full responsibility for what happened. The wrong box was checked. But I think part of the responsibility also lies with the commission. Wouldn’t you ask a question about all these medications (on the questionnaire)? The bottom line is that we weren’t trying to hide anything. If we had wanted to, we could have done the injection at the hotel before the fight and nobody would have known but we didn’t want to hide anything,? he continued.
Koncz also said he assumed that the United States Anti-Doping Agency, which conducted random drug tests on both Pacquiao and Mayweather and which reportedly said the anti-inflammatory drugs were legal, informed the NSAC about Pacquiao?s injury.
?[It was] our understanding that I thought USADA was in constant contact with the commission about all this and the contract we signed with USADA was given to the commission and they were privy to all the test results. This whole incident has been blown out of proportion and the only ones who suffer were Manny and the fans,? he added.
Pacquiao lost to Mayweather via unanimous decision, later on claiming he wasn?t in 100-percent form because of the bum shoulder. – Dino Maragay
